Closing Remarks

Advice on traffic lights
Tonight I shall tell a story from my American period. I have a good friend in Chicago who
worked with me in Bogotá, Chicago and Houston. He comes from a small mid-west town on
the Great Plains in west Kansas near the Colorado border. Hicksville basically. The town has
a bar and pool table, a 24 by 7 convenience store, the church and not much else. His father
is a farmer and will never retire. He will just pass away whilst ploughing one day. My friend
Steve passed a few exams and escaped to the big wide world. He tells this story about traffic
lights in his home town.
The town had one set of traffic lights where two roads crossed at the east end of town. The
residents thought another set would increase the status of their town, slow down through
traffic and encourage cars to stop off. They applied to have another set erected at the
western end. A state official came to town surveyed the scene and set up traffic monitoring.
Six months later the town were informed about their application. Instead of getting
approval for their second set of lights, the state ordered the removal of their one set.
So my advice tonight is this. If you live in a one traffic light kind of town don’t push the boat
out too far. You may lose your only set of lights and become no traffic light town.
Final toast : Kansas, Rotary International and Rotarians world-wide.